The All-Russian Muslim Board has called for stopping the killings of clerics in the North Caucasus.

"Militants are openly threatening clerics, and clerics are killed in their own homes. What else must happen before practical steps are taken to stop the mass destruction of clerics?" head of the Board's Executive Committee Mufti Muhammedgali Huzin told the Interfax-Religion.

He referred to the murder of mosque imam Magomed Saipulayev in the village of Yasnaya Polyana in the Kizlyar District of Dagestan last weekend.

The National Counter Terrorist Committee said that the imam was known for his irreconcilable attitude to militants and was threatened many times.